By S Castonguay WMO Secretariat Vladimir Ryabinin of the Russian Federation was appointed as the new Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO at the level of...

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, signed in 1987, has been successful in that the amount of chlorofluorocarbons is now slowly diminishing. A common misunderstanding, however, is the belief that the ozone problem has been solved and the ozone layer is back to its original state.

Weather prediction has achieved immense progress, driven by research and increasingly sophisticated telecommunication, information technology and observational infrastructure. Predictive skill now extends in some cases beyond 10 days, with an increasing capability to give early warning of severe weather events many days ahead.